Go 2 Guy: Seahawks get small surprise in Reed

JIM MOOR, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By JIM MOORE, SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM

Updated 10:00 pm, Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Go 2 Guy also writes for 710Sports.com and kitsapsun.com. Reach Jim at jimmoorethego2guy@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter as @cougsgo. He appears weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. on "Danny, Dave and Moore" on 710 ESPN Seattle radio.

Right in front of me, I'm seeing something I haven't seen all month from the Seahawks -- Nick Reed standing still.

For a change, only his lips are moving. You could call him the biggest surprise of training camp because seventh-round draft choices aren't supposed to make an impact the way he has.

But Reed is neither big, nor a surprise, just highly effective thus far, recording two sacks and an interception in his first two preseason games. He's a Duck that even Husky fans can root for.

And it appears they'll be given that chance -- in a Monday interview on KJR, Seahawks coach Jim Mora intimated that Reed more than likely will make the team.

Earlier this week I spoke to Reed for 10 minutes after practice. He seemed like the kind of guy you'd like your daughter to meet, but he already has a girlfriend, Blair Williamson, a senior outfielder on the Oregon softball team.

He's got a dog too, and if you want to see him brighten, ask him about Madison, a black Lab/German shepherd mix that he found at the pound when he was a sophomore at Oregon.

"She's a great dog, she loves chasing tennis balls," Reed said. "I'm excited to get her up here."

Reed's mom, Kathy, can't wait. She's in Eugene taking care of Madison until her son finds out if he's earned a roster spot. Talk about excited -- she'll be excited to get rid of Nick's dog.

"It's his baby, but she's a little high strung if you ask me," Kathy said. "She's just really exuberant and loves to lick you to death. She mauls me and won't leave me alone."

She and her husband advised him not to get a dog until he graduated, "but of course he didn't listen," Kathy said.

Reed thinks Madison has some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder that causes her to go nuts for tennis balls. Her owner has a constant motor himself, one that never stops once the ball is snapped.

This shouldn't be news to anyone -- Reed was always on the go at Oregon, a prolific pass-rusher who had a school-record 29.5 sacks in his career, fourth most in Pac-10 history.

If he were 6-foot-4 and 270 pounds and had those kinds of stats, Reed would have been a first- or second-round pick. But because he's 6-1 and 247, he went in the seventh and last round, most NFL scouts feeling he was too small to make it in their league as a defensive end.

"I just don't understand why there's still all that talk," Kathy Reed said. "When he went to college, he was undersized. When he left college, they said he was undersized. Everything I've read recently, it's always about his size. It doesn't seem to matter in his case."

Everyone's got questions about him and Reed has one of his own:

"Why can't a guy my size do what I'm doing?" he asked.

"Because conventional wisdom says you shouldn't be able to do it at this level," I said.

"There is no conventional wisdom," Reed said. "I've gotten used to it. I've spent a lot of my career fighting that."

Said Kathy: "It's disappointing how little people thought of him. He went against 300-pound guys every game."

Here's something to think about -- maybe his lack of size helps, contributing to his speed and leverage. Seahawks defensive line coach Dan Quinn doesn't think that Reed will wear down either. Once the season starts, Reed will probably get spot duty on passing downs.

Reed has initial quickness, great instincts for where the quarterback is and good hands. "That's a good combination for pass-rushers," Quinn said. "I like watching him play."

Throughout Reed's college career and first two games with the Seahawks, his mom or dad has been at every one of his games.

Kathy watches and prays he won't get hurt. She's understandably proud of her kid. Back in junior high, he was headstrong and argued with her, but look at who he turned out to be, a good person and a great student, an academic All-American.

Reed, who will turn 22 on Tuesday, had a 3.44 GPA and majored in history because "I just really like history." How much?

But he prefers being outdoors doing just about anything -- hunting, fishing whitewater rafting on the Rogue and Santiam rivers, or just walking his dog. The Southern Californian is all Northwest now.

Asked to describe his personality, Reed said he's relaxed, happy-go-lucky and usually in a good mood. He knows that Oregon fans are Husky haters, but having grown up in Trabuco Canyon, Calif., he didn't share their animosity.

"I didn't hate the Huskies any more than I hated anyone else," said Reed, who never lost to Washington.

His mom can't get over how well he handles himself in interviews, and this one's about to end. His coaches are behind me, telling him to get in the weight room.